Jack of the Lantern
BY ALPER ÖZKAN (MSN/PhD I)
Mythology tends to have "universal constants" of sorts, certain story elements or themes that seem to repeatedly pop up in unrelated cultures. A yearly gathering of the unnatural is one of those. In most of Europe, an assembly of otherworldly hunters is said to run across the continent every fall, accompanied by storms and led by none other than the All-Father Odin. All those who behold the hunt are given two choices: join the chase, or be cursed. (You might get cursed even if you join it, though! Or, the Wild Hunt might just pass by harmlessly -- there are a lot of variants for this myth.)
The beginning of May marks the Walpurgisnacht in Germany, the rather innocent festival of Saint Walburga (Walpurgisnacht is quite obviously "Walburga's Night"), which was somehow converted into the story of a yearly gathering of witches at Mount Brocken. The legend's popularity might be enhanced by the Brocken spectre, an optical phenomenon that often occurs in the mountain's vicinity and allows the observer to cast an enormous shadow that might easily be mistaken for a giant misshapen monster.
In Japan, those who wander too far during the summer months might chance upon the Hyakki Yako, a parade of demons who gather not for any higher purpose, but just to make merry, though mortals they encounter are still doomed to die on the spot.
The 18 months of the Aztec solar calendar, each with 20 days, ended with a calibration period of five days called the Nemontemi, an unlucky period when the divine order was out of place and supernatural dangers were not unexpected. Such was the threat posed by those days that the Aztecs ignored their existence whenever possible, for to recognize them was to increase their power.
And so on, and so forth.
Halloween, though, was not one of these ominous occasions, at least not initially. Its origin is said to lie in Samhain, a festival in which the dead were honored and a good harvest was celebrated, and like the Walpurgisnacht, it was gradually transformed into what it is now. But that's not my concern, because after using Halloween as an excuse to fill half of this week's column with trivia (but then, that's what this column is for, so I'll consider this a success), I'm going to tell you the origin of those goofy carved pumpkins with goofy carved faces.
As the story goes, an old drunkard, who went by the name of Jack, had such a bad reputation that even the Devil himself caught wind of it and decided to personally determine whether or not old Jack lived up to the rumors. Jack, for his part, immediately recognized the infernal prince and knew that his time was up, though he had one more trick up his sleeve: he asked the Devil to treat him to a last drink of ale before his eternal damnation. Never missing out on a chance to get a sinner to sin more, the Devil gladly agreed.
After drinking to his heart's content in a nearby pub, Jack then demanded that his demonic patron pay the tab, suggesting an additional con: Jack would pay for his booze with the Devil himself, transformed into a silver coin, and the latter would then escape back into his original form, leaving the bartender penniless. Impressed by Jack's keen wit even at death's door, the Devil gladly complied, only to find himself in Jack's pocket, where a crucifix was also kept. Unable to transform back, the Devil was then forced to give Jack an extra ten years of life in return for his freedom.
At the end of the ten years, the Devil returned to take Jack's soul once and for all, no doubt with tortures devised just for him as payback for the earlier humiliation. Willing to accept his fate, Jack this time asked for one last apple to eat, and the Devil agreed again - after all, there were no transformations involved, and the chance for trickery seemed very low. But apparently not low enough, for while the Devil was busy climbing a nearby apple tree, old Jack covered the tree's trunk with crosses, again trapping the poor infernal prince (for all his unholy might, the Devil apparently can't fly). Jack's demand was heftier this time - he asked for his soul never to be taken to Hell - but the Devil had no choice but to agree.
As the fates would have it, Jack soon succumbed to old age and his drinking habit, and made his way to Heaven to enjoy his afterlife -
only to be turned away at the gates, for he was a sinner. Having no other choice, he then tried his luck at getting into Hell, but the Devil couldn't break his word and had to refuse entry. In grudging recognition of Jack's trickery, the Devil instead provided him with the undying fires of Hell in a lantern to assist him in finding his way on Earth, where he is now forced to eternally wander, barred from both Heaven and Hell. Imitations of this lantern - initially carved in a turnip but later upgraded to a pumpkin - are what you see decorating houses and gardens every Halloween.